by K. J. Parker
Psellus pursed his lips. “You mean it, then? About not wanting to come home anymore.”
“What is there for me to come home to?”
“Doesn’t that mean … ?” Psellus was looking at him. “Well, it’s admitting that you’ve lost, isn’t it?”
Ziani couldn’t help laughing at that. “Who cares?” he said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s as if they’d both died. Nothing left to go home to. I might as well find something to do with the rest of my life.” He smiled. “One thing’s for sure, I’ve found out a lot of things about myself I’d never have dreamed of before. The things I’ve achieved …” He paused. “I could make a great deal of money,” he said. “I could be a nobleman, a great lord, like all these ridiculous Eremians and Vadani I’ve been spending so much time with. Great big houses, country estates; I could go hawking and hunting. I could marry a nobleman’s beautiful, accomplished daughter, have a whole brood of aristocratic children who’d never have to work for a living. Well? Can you see any reason why not? I’ve proved what I can do, more or less without trying. If I could make my peace with the Guilds, so I wouldn’t have to be looking over my shoulder all the time for a Compliance assassin, there’s no reason at all why I shouldn’t. And …” He shrugged. “It’s not as though I’ve got anything better to do.” He raised an eyebrow. “Or are you going to tell me about my duty to my country; my duty not to steal her secrets and hand them over to the savages?”
Psellus shifted in his seat. “None of my business,” he said. “I’m not in Compliance anymore.”
Ziani laughed. “Nicely put,” he said. “Tell me, why did you come here?”
“To negotiate with you.”
“Nonsense. You’ve as good as told me that the Guilds have no intention of honoring any agreement we may make.”
“True.” Psellus’ shoulders slumped a little. “To ask you questions,” he said.
“To see if they’d confirm your theory?”
“I guess so, yes.”
“Because that’d explain why you were transferred from Compliance to Defense.”
“I suppose so.”
“Well, then.” Ziani yawned. “Did you know that Duke Valens’ closest adviser is spying for the Republic?”
Awkward silence. “No,” Psellus said, “I didn’t know that.”
“His name’s Mezentius and he reports back directly to Councillor Boioannes,” Ziani said. “I take it he hasn’t been sharing what he’s learned with the rest of the committee.”
Psellus didn’t answer that. “How do you know?” he asked.
Ziani shrugged. “Luck,” he replied. “As you know, I use the women traders to carry messages for me, find things out, that sort of thing. I was talking to one of them a while back, and I must have said something that gave her the impression that I was in on the secret, maybe part of the setup. She told me things that left me in no doubt.” He paused to marshal his thoughts before continuing. “You can see why it concerns me,” he said. “To put it simply, if Boioannes already has a pet traitor, someone much better placed than me, he doesn’t need me as well. He can get this Mezentius to give him the Vadani. So, obviously, any deal he offers me is bound to be a trap.” He smiled. “I can also see how it affects you. If Boioannes could have the Vadani any time he wanted, why’s the war still going on? He must be up to something, and his plan must turn on the war carrying on. Well, if he likes the war so much, maybe it’s a fair guess that he was the one who started it.”
Psellus nodded. “By using you.”
“Flattering, I suppose, though I could have done without the honor. Anyway,” he added, “something for you to think about on your long ride home. Consider it a thank-you from me.” He tapped the packet of papers on the table. “In return for this.”
Psellus appeared to think for quite a while. “Do you mean it?” he said, avoiding Ziani’s eyes. “About not wanting to come home anymore.”
“Of course. Like I’ve been telling you, there wouldn’t be any point.”
“Where can you go? To start your new life, I mean.”
“Oh, anywhere.” He was pretty sure Psellus hadn’t been taken in by that. “The Cure Doce seem a reasonable bet. I never realized how huge their territory is. In fact …” He stopped and clicked his tongue. “A year ago I’d never heard of them, except as a name. If you’d have asked me then, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you if they were real, or something out of a fairy tale.”
“You wouldn’t like it there,” Psellus said. “They’re primitives.”
“Worse than these people?” Ziani laughed. “And even if they are, they won’t be for long, if I go there. I could go right the other side of their country, off the edge of the Guild maps, and in six months I’d be building my first factory. It seems I’ve got a talent for it. It turns out that the world’s a fairly big place, and no matter where they live or what color their skin is or what language they speak, they’re going to want nails, plowshares and cheap tin buckets. It’s a law of nature.”
Psellus nodded slowly. “I’m glad I’m not in Compliance anymore,” he said, with feeling. “You’re exactly what we used to have nightmares about: the monster …”
“If I’m the monster, you made me into it,” Ziani replied casually. “But of course, it all depends on this deal you’ve come here to arrange.”
“Oh,” Psellus said. “That.”
“Yes. Here’s my offer.” Ziani paused for a moment. The silence bothered him, as silence always did. Twenty years in machine shops, tenement houses, the streets of the city; he needed noise just as much as air. “Arrange it so that …” He’d almost said my wife. “So that she’ll be all right, so that they won’t take it out on her, and Moritsa. In return, I’ll go away, and nobody will ever hear my name again. They can say I’m dead; that they’ve seen my body, hung up on a hook. You can be the witness; they’ll trust you, because you’re too small to lie. That’ll solve their political crisis for them. Oh, and I’ll throw in the Vadani, for good measure, if that’s what Boioannes really wants. I’ll deliver them just like I did with the Eremians; I know how to do it, incidentally. I’ve arranged it so it’ll be a piece of cake. Yes, I know,” he added, turning away. “The Guilds don’t negotiate with abominators, and any deal they strike won’t be binding on them. But I’m lucky; I’ve got you to sell it to them. You can explain. Will it really matter if I’m dead or not, so long as I’m officially dead, and everybody believes it? We can manufacture some proof. We could get a head, smash its face in so nobody could recognize it; they can nail it to a gateway somewhere, and have a public holiday. If I’m officially dead, and the Vadani have been wiped out, then the Republic has prevailed, the way it always does. Boioannes can stage his discreet coup and be god-on-earth for a bit, until someone gets rid of him. Everything will be all right; and you’ll be right on top, of course, because you’ll tell them it was all your idea, the result of your incredibly skillful and delicate negotiations, your painstaking research that gave you the insights you needed into the mind of the abominator. Well? Isn’t it perfect?”
As he finished his speech — definitely a speech, he admitted to himself, faintly ashamed — he was watching Psellus as though he was some complex mechanism (too complex; overengineered, built arse-about-face, not something he’d ever be proud to admit to, but functional, he hoped). It would be interesting to see whether he’d assessed this contemptible little man accurately, or whether he’d underestimated him, as others had.
“No,” Psellus said. “They’ll pretend to agree, but they won’t let you go.”
“You reckon?”
“I know,” Psellus replied. “You see, there’s nothing in it they couldn’t make for themselves. They could fake your death, and dismiss any reports of you as rumors and lies. And if you’re right about Boioannes having a spy already, they don’t need you to give them the Vadani. There’d have to be something else; and what else have you got to offer?”
Ziani smiled. Nice to be right. “As
it happens,” he said, “I do have something else. I can give them the silver mines.”
20
She hadn’t spoken to him for two days; not since they’d climbed to the top of the ridge that overlooked the city. He wondered if he’d offended her, though he couldn’t imagine how.
As the coach stumbled over the potholes in the road, he looked sideways at her, considering her as though she was some ornament or work of art he’d bought in a rash moment of enthusiasm. Seen in profile, her nose was long and almost unnaturally straight; in profile, of course, you didn’t notice how thin it was. There was a slight upward curve to her top lip that he couldn’t help but find appealing. The weakness of her chin, on the other hand …
Her eyes flicked sideways and he turned away, embarrassed at having been caught staring. No reason, of course, why a man shouldn’t look at his own wife. Even so; he’d got the impression she didn’t like it. He concentrated on the road ahead, but that was simply distressing.
Of course, he thought, I could try talking to her, rather than waiting for her to talk to me. A radical enough notion, but it couldn’t do any harm. Could it?
“I guess you must be used to this sort of thing,” he said.
She turned full-face and looked at him. “Excuse me?”
“Traveling in carts,” he explained. “I mean, your people being nomadic.”
“I see.” She paused, thinking through her answer, like a conscientious witness in court. “Yes, we travel extensively,” she said. “However, our vehicles are more comfortable, and much better designed for long journeys. For example, I would normally travel reclining on a three-quarter-length couch, rather than sitting on a bench. Also, because of their superior suspension, our vehicles travel appreciably faster, which gives us scope for longer and more frequent stops for rest and exercise. Our horses have been bred specifically for stamina over many centuries.”
“I’m sorry,” Valens mumbled.
“What for?”
“The discomfort. The coach not being up to what you’re used to. We don’t do much of this sort of thing, you see.”
“I know. I’ve made allowances. However, it’s — considerate,” a slight stumble over the word, “of you to be concerned. Besides, I’ve traveled in worse.”
You could cut shield-leather with those eyes. More than ever she reminded him of a bird of prey; he wished he had a hood he could fasten over her face, to stop her looking at him. “We had to organize all this at very short notice,” he went on. “Perhaps, when we’re settled again, you could give our coachbuilders a few tips.”
She frowned. “I’m not really competent to advise on technical matters,” she said. “However, I’m sure I could arrange for some of our coachbuilders to be seconded to you for a while.”
Valens nodded, and went back to staring at the road ahead. Sooner or later, he told himself, I’m going to have to sleep with this woman. Won’t that be fun.
Try again. “The reason we’re going so slowly isn’t just because our wagons are a bit primitive,” he said. “Bear in mind, we’re carrying all this armor plate. We’ve got to be a bit careful, in case the extra weight busts the axles when we go over holes in the road.”
“Our suspension systems would help in that regard,” she said. “Instead of steel springs, we use a laminate of horn, wood and sinew, similar to the material we make our bows from. We find that steel tends to fatigue and crack with heavy use; the composite springs hold up much better. Of course they’re costlier and harder to make, but we find it worth the effort and expense in the long term. A broken spring can hold up an entire caravan for days.”
“Horn and sinew,” Valens repeated, trying to sound interested. “That’s clever.”
She nodded. “It’s an efficient design,” she said. “The horn is ideally suited to absorb shock, while the sinew offers almost unlimited flexibility. The wood is simply a core. The weakest component is, of course, the glue that holds the layers together. We use a compound made up of equal parts of sinew and rawhide offcuts …”
More about making springs than anybody could possibly want to know, ever. At another time, in another context, explained by someone else, it might have been mildly interesting, to somebody who actually gave a damn. Vaatzes? No, he’d have a fit. the Mezentines made cart-springs from steel, so anything else would be a (what was the word?) an abomination. He’d probably spend the rest of the trip trying to convince her steel springs were better.
(Talking of which, where was Vaatzes? Couldn’t remember having seen him for a while.)
She’d stopped talking. “Well,” he said, “that’s fascinating. We’ll definitely have to give these composite springs a try sometime.”
“Advisable,” she said. “The best sinew for the purpose is the back-strap of a cow or horse; ordinary cowhorn suffices for the inner layer. For wood we prefer maple, though ash makes an acceptable substitute where maple’s not available.”
“Not much maple in these parts,” Valens heard himself say. “Presumably birch’d be too brittle.”
“Yes.”
Really, she was like a bear-trap or a pitfall; words just dropped into her to curl up and starve to death. Tremendously well-informed, of course; she’d be a real asset, if only he could get past her unfortunate manner. Regrettably, he found himself passionately not wanting to know anything she could teach him. Not like him at all — he thought of the hundreds of books, presumably still on the shelves of his library, waiting patiently for the Mezentines to steal or burn them. Irresponsible to reject a potentially useful resource simply because of a clash of personality.
“How about where you come from? Much maple there?”
“No. We have to trade for it with the Luzir Soleth, who know how much we value it and demand an extortionate price. For that reason, we use it very sparingly.”
Another thing he’d heard about these people; they respected truth above all things. The perfect education, they said with pride, consisted of horsemanship, archery and telling the truth. He could believe that. She answered all his questions as though she was on oath.
“I’m hoping we’ll reach the Sow’s Back by nightfall,” he said. “It’s the last range of hills before the long plain.”
“The Sow’s … ?”
“It looks like a pig’s back,” he said. “A bit. The trouble is, it’s pretty close to the Eremian border, and the Mezentines have been sending patrols across; just to be annoying, I think, but we don’t want to be seen, obviously. After that —”
“Where are we going?” she asked him.
“I just said, the Sow’s Back. If we can get clear of that, it ought to be a straight run.”
“In the end,” she said. “Where are you taking them?”
The truth above all things. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “It’s more a case of traveling hopefully; just keeping on the move. The nomadic life, you might say.”
“That’s …” She frowned. “That’s a drastic change, for a sedentary people.”
He laughed, which annoyed her. “I don’t think we’ve got a choice,” he said. “If we go somewhere and stop, unload the carts, build houses, sooner or later the Mezentines will find us and attack. That’d be the end of us. They took Civitas Eremiae, which was the strongest fortified city in the world, apart from Mezentia itself. Nothing we could build would be likely to hold them up for long.”
“Eremia fell through treachery, not direct assault.”
“Yes.” He sighed. He didn’t like discussing things he already knew about. “But it was just a matter of time. They’d have modified their siege engines, trebled the size of their army. The problem with them is, beating them just makes them more determined to win.”
She raised a thin, high-arched eyebrow. “In that case …”
“In that case,” he said, “the only way we’ll get out of this is not to fight. If we fight, either we’ll lose, which’d be bad, or we’ll win — unlikely, and just as bad. But if we can avoid fighting for long enoug
h, there’s a chance they’ll give up and go home. Their internal politics —”
“I’ve made a study of the subject,” she said. “CouncillorMezentius has been most helpful. You’re hoping they’ll lose the political will to continue, once the cost of the war begins to affect their economy.”
“Exactly.” If she’d known all along, why had she made him explain? But she hadn’t, of course. “So my idea is, we keep going. I haven’t worked out a detailed itinerary because it’s essential we keep our movements random; if there’s a set plan, they might find out about it. It’s pretty clear from what happened in Eremia that they’ve got good spies. No; I’ve got a list in my head of places where we can get supplies, and the distances between them. That’s as organized as it gets, for the time being.”
She was still frowning. “And the iron plates?” she said.
“We’re going to be attacked, at some point,” Valens replied. “So I’m hoping to turn that to our advantage. The only way they’ll be able to engage us is by sending out cavalry detachments, to look for us when we have to come down from the mountains for supplies. I’m hoping that they will attack us, and that all this ironmongery will give us the advantage, against cavalry.”
“You want to fight them and win. But you said —”
Irritating bloody woman. “Yes, but beating off cavalry attacks isn’t the same thing as beating them in a pitched battle. It’s …” He searched for an analogy. “Losing a few dozen cavalrymen would come out of income rather than capital. It’d be annoying rather than a dishonor that could only be purged in blood. It’s more likely to persuade them we aren’t worth the effort and expense.”
She nodded, and he felt as though he’d just passed a test.
“Anyway,” he went on, “that’s the general idea. It’s not brilliant, but it’s the best we could come up with. Let’s just hope it works.”
She looked at him. “There is an alternative,” she said.
“Really?” He tried not to sound impatient, but he was fairly sure he failed.
